Ataraxy
by satan-chillin
Summary: Sam has to know, at least before he could finally put a bullet in Chuck and end this once and for all. Including himself.


"Why?"

The word escaped Sam before he could hold himself back.

"Why what, Sam? You'll have to be more specific," Chuck said, a picture of full composure with his leaned back as if Sam wasn't pointing the Equalizer right at his face.

Presently weakened or not, he looked amused more than anything. It wasn't often that a human would raise arms against the God, after all, and Sam wondered whether Chuck had written this part too, where it was just the two of them and who would move first would be the victor.

It was a ridiculous setup that Sam found himself in and something he should have ended right there and then. He caught Chuck unaware at his weakest state that God could barely stand still.

And yet Sam wanted to know. He _has _to know, at least before he could finally put a bullet in Chuck and end this once and for all.

Including himself.

"I want to know why me and Dean. I want to know why it's our lives that you subjected to your will. Explain to me, Chuck. What exactly did we do to you that you picked us out among the rest and decided that you'd play with our fate?"

"Why, you think there's something about you two brothers that I particularly hate?" Chuck shrugged. "I mean, it was like a raffle draw, and I just happened to get your names. And so what? I made you and your brother just as I made the rest of everything else, Sam. As your creator, I have every right to interfere with your lives."

"No. That doesn't give you the right to make us your playthings, Chuck. You created us, but your control should have ended the moment you breathe us life."

God gave a derisive laugh at Sam's seething statement, and Sam had never hated another being like this.

"My poor child. You don't understand what I told you. When I said that I made all of you, I meant every fiber from the smallest cell to the very last thought you'll form. You can claim free will and Darwinism, but the fact remains that I made _every _part of your being." Chuck gave Sam a look that was an ugly mix of faux pity and mirth. "Do you seriously think I'll let you stand there, asking a ridiculous question, if I don't want you to?

"Look at yourself, Sam. Do you think you'll be the person you are now if I didn't write you that way? I'm the one who set your defaults. I created you as a naturally curious boy; someone with an immense passion for learning; someone who believed the good in people no matter what; someone who believed in second chances. Sure, your trials and experiences shape you to a man that you are, but who do you think created those too? I made situations for everyone where they can grow to their better selves, and neither you nor your brother is an exception to that. Maybe I simply liked the outcome of yours and your brother's compared to others.

"And you know what? This isn't even the storyline I planned for you. You're supposed to be basking in the victory high at this very moment after clearing a vampire nest—I sort of forgot; what I mean is the usual for the Winchester brothers—and I guess you would have been in time for a lovely dinner with your family and your supposed girlfriend, maybe."

Sam exhaled sharply. "Shut up."

"Not curious about what I had in store for you? People usually are when it comes to what-ifs," Chuck said. "Let's see—right, girlfriend! Boy, you've been unlucky with that, aren't you? Now don't look at me like that. It did make you an interesting character, Sam. The tall and handsome brooding man who rarely gets attached, and whenever he does, he ends up cursing them to their deaths one way or another."

"I said shut up, Chuck."

Chuck ignored him, smiling. "But the last one, that hit you the most. Not because she asked you to and you did it unwillingly. It was because of what was there between the two of you. I was a fan of your developing relationship with her, I admit. You knew she was one of my guilty pleasures too, so imagine my pride to see her grew into someone redeemable yet remain strong and steadfast. She grew softer and had a new perspective in her long life because of you, but it didn't make her any less clever nor dulled her sharp tongue.

"What you had with her, it wasn't romance. Not yet, anyway, but the two of you were on the right track. After all the once bad blood, reluctant alliance, the shared trauma, the mutual understanding, the tentative friendship, the developed admiration for each other, the reliance for each other that you formed… And she was what you've been looking for, haven't you, Sam? 'Someone who understands the life and accepts it as it is' if I remember your words correctly. She was never like those women you've been with—and, well, I'll honestly say I wrote all your former girlfriends pretty but lacking in substantial characterizations—and you weren't like those men she met before in the back story I had for her. With the right build-up and all that time and effort spent on the character, Rowena became the most suitable life partner for Sam Winchester."

"No." Sam shook his head defiantly. "You don't get to say her name, Chuck, because you might as well be the one who killed her by putting us—_her_—in that situation!"

"True," Chuck agreed nonchalantly. "But, hey, I'm not the one who stabbed her in the end, am I?"

"You think I don't know that? I do, and every night my mind won't let me forget that. It won't let me forget that I killed her, that her blood stained my hands and she was proud of me for it!"

Sam's unfaltering aim wavered, and for a moment he thought his finger would click the gun on its own; it didn't despite his blurring vision and the shuddering breath that he took.

"No, you don't know anything, Sam," Chuck replied testily, the smile wiped from his face in an instant. "You didn't know how it was supposed to end with you and your brother or with you and Rowena. She held you in her heart dearly, and she would have loved you, maybe not the same way those sweet ladies you've had did, but fiercer and not any less. It would have been far from an easy and flawless relationship, but it would have been perfect for you, Sam."

Sam's vision blurred, and he felt the steady trickle running down his cheeks. He hated Chuck, but more than anything he hated that the words coming out of Chuck's mouth were right.

"You would have got it, Sam, the life you like, with your brother, with Rowena—heck, with your very own children even. The whole nine yards of the picturesque life Sam Winchester has envisioned for his own, and you would have all of that until you decided to get smart with me, go off-script, and shot me! You dare? You dare hurt your God?! Me? I created you, Sam! I created you, and I can destroy you too!"

Sam hastily rubbed his eyes and breathed in and out. And he waited, as stupid as it might be. He waited for it to come, Chuck's promise.

Except it didn't, and Sam knew right there and then who won.

"You're wrong, Chuck," Sam said softly. "You don't want to be bored, and you'll surely be once you cut the strings you're using to control us. It'll never end with you, and there will never be peace for us. Certainly not the way I envisioned it, not even the one you drafted for us."

Sam felt the shot before he could hear it, falling on his back opposite of Chuck's prone form that met the ground with a meaty thud. Sam was lying there, unmoving and bleeding profusely from his chest.

Ironically, as much as there was immense pain, there was a sense of clarity.

A sort of tranquility.

It was done, and finally, _finally_, Sam knew he could rest.

* * *

_**fin**_


End file.
